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Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Hookes Micrographia

I have been working on a figurine of Robert Hooke, who was a natural philosopher, architect and polymath. He was born in 1635, and wrote Micrographia, which has some beautiful illustrations of things Hooke observed through his microscope. Published in September 1665, it was the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of microscopy. I visited Winchester College today and got to see this book first hand.

In my figurine I have illustrated Hooke examining a flea through his
microscope, which was inspired by one of the beautiful printed plates I
saw today. The prints are on a surprisingly large scale.